It is well known in the art that hydrocarbyl-substituted succinic anhydrides are good for treating paper, fabric, or other surfaces to impart water repellency. As indicated in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,102,064, 3,821,069, 3,968,005, and 4,040,900 (Re. 29,960), these compositions are particularly useful for sizing paper.
It is also known that these succinic anhydrides are best applied for such purposes in a highly dispersed form, such as an aqueous emulsion. See, for example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,040,900 (Re. 29,960), which describes paper sizing emulsions made from mixtures comprising a substituted cyclic dicarboxylic acid anhydride and polyoxyalkylene alkyl or alkylaryl ether or the corresponding mono- or di-ester.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,968,310 describes half-ester reaction products obtained by reacting maleated alpha-olefins with hydrocarbylpolyoxyalkylene alkanols. These half-ester reaction products are useful as hot melt adhesives for paper stocks. However, these compositions suffer the disadvantage of being insoluble in water at neutral or acidic pH and are ineffective in forming aqueous emulsions.